I want it now... seems to be fashionable this week

Last week Google beta launched Google Instant search, in short, search answers appearing as you typed your query, but more on that another day, even if its functionality will save me 5 seconds a search!!

Speed being one of the amazing things about the web, some quick off the mark smart cookie created a YouTube instant version, which is pretty impressive.

Have a play with the "unofficial" YouTube Instant here....

Meanwhile YouTube themselves, are about to kick off a two day beta test of Live Streaming, something that they've experimented with in the past with U2 concerts and cricket tests. They've hooked up with a few content partners and put together this rather nice looking widget so you can see what they are scheduling:

YouTube launch video charts..

You've been able to see what's most popular now etc for a while,  but YouTube have now launched a video chart so you can check out what's been most viewed / liked / subscribed to today / this week / ever.

So having had a play about.... the 3 most viewed videos on YouTube, with a staggering 390,716,462 views are someone young, someone not so young, and something cute and fluffy......

The much-lauded (in advertising circles) T-Mobile dance at Liverpool Street staggers in at a mere #29, beaten by a broad assortment of music videos plus the odd obligatory cat-doing-something-daft offering.

YouTube gets even more multi-screen friendly

The YouTube team have been busy it appears.

Two developments this week - one, for let's call them BIG screens, and the other for POCKET screens.

Let's start with the big screens (formerly known and understood as TVs)

In May YouTube announced they would be launching a new service designed to make your YouTube experience on bigger screens even better. There's already YouTube XL, (which I rather like) and yesterday the next generation of that beta launched as YouTube Leanback .

XL gives you cleaner easier navigation around YouTube for those that have got their act together and either project content from the web or have a connected large screen at home.

 Leanback goes one step further towards Google's forthcoming TV Project.

Once you've launched YouTube/Leanback it will immediately start playing footage from the people/channels you've subscribed to, with a ribbon of other content from other subscription channels appearing at the bottom of the screen which you can quickly and simply navigate through using keyboard arrow keys.

What do I think?

It's easy to navigate yes, but in reality, I don't know that many people who as yet have either a home media centre /projector set up or a large screen that's net-connected. It will come, no doubt faster than we can imagine I am sure.

However, it's the implications of Leanback which are interesting, particularly for brand channels / broadcasters. Once you've got someone to subscribe to your channel (take BlendTec for example), using Leanback, you'll automatically be able to expose them via easy navigation to old or new content. Nice if you've captured people already but it makes it tougher to interrupt / attract attention given the human tendency (when watching content flopped on the sofa after a hard day) to take the easy route (i.e just channel flick the top 10/ routine channels) than lean in and look for new stuff.  Factor in the power of the social graph - when what you watch (next)is shaped by algorithms and messages that appear alongside your video saying "your friend Fred watched x or subcribed to y" or "z is really popular today / this week / right now" and the power of influence (or the votes of the crowd) scores over advertising yet again.

Yet another win for my "battle of the Somme theory". The time is now for brands and advertisers to be experimenting and learning what works or doesn't.  People are experimenting and making decisions whether it's about downloading or keeping useful apps for this or that or subscribing to useful/entertaining content sources on YouTube. I have no doubt that it will get harder and harder to get people to shift in the future.

Does your brand have a YouTube channel? Is it well thought out, called something sensible that makes it easy to find and publishing, framing or aggregating relevant and interesting content beyond just being somewhere to sling your made-for-TV ads??

Back to the POCKET screen.... YouTube gets even more mobile friendly ...

YouTube launched their mobile portal in 2007 when it was offering just 1000 videos in mobile friendly format. 2009 saw a 160% increase YoY on videos viewed on mobile handsets, and there are now 100 million videos viewed on a mobile every day.

So it was time for a revamp that's as much cosmetic as it is functional:  YouTube's mobile site is now faster than ever before, (on Android phones / iPhone at least), it's friendlier to touch screen navigation [video] and has much more of the functionality you experience on the site, i.e the ability to like / unlike, "favourite" or create playlists just as you can on the web. (Taking me nicely back to the previous point about Leanback and laziness - now it's easier than ever before to line up stuff you want to watch when you get home on a bigger screen whilst you are standing at the bus stop on your way home...).

Brands, what's your multi-screen strategy!?  It's not about channels any more, the silo walls are falling fast.

YouTube tops 2 billion views a day

Yup, having just passed it's 5th birthday, YouTube has now announced that they are now topping 2 billion views a day.  Wow.  That's a billion more than they were seeing last October.

Check out this 5 years of YouTube timeline

And this little video... If 5 years can make this much difference, imagine what the future holds!?

Video Trivia: Every minute an entire day's worth of content added to YouTube

Yup!  YouTube recently announced: 24 hours worth of video content is uploaded EVERY Minute.

That's 4 more hours per minute than when the last lot of figures were released 10 months ago in May 2009.

Wow.

YouTube throw a Googley for the cricket

I just noticed that YouTube have done a Google again and changed their logo to one featuring a cricket bat to coincide with the current Indian cricket match series.

Nice touch of current affairs.

Following the link takes you off to a hub that will aggregate matches, results etc etc, and for me is another nice example of how video content on the web is breaking down barriers between screens.

When is TV not TV? When it's on YouTube. Or is it?

It's tricky one isn't it? We used to say "what's on the box?" meaning the TV, but now we all have flat screens or panels, so that no longer really rings true.   Yet "TV" is a term that we generally associate with long form multi-media content that isn't feature-film length but is longer than the traditional 3 minutes of content snacking we're used to on YouTube.

As broadcasters come to terms with the notion of on-demand TV content, they're increasingly seeing YouTube & it's brethren (Hulu, dailymotion,etc) as powerful platforms to extend the reach of their shows.  Channel 4 announced last week  that 50 hours/week of catch-up TV content will be available on YouTube (as well as 4 on demand), along with a joint ad revenue sharing deal.

So TV is now just a generic term for longer than short form but not as long as feature film multi-media content, that has it's origins (be they a commission, acquisition or initial exposure) via the hallowed halls of a broadcaster.

Which is as it should be from a consumer persepctive: content should be platform agnostic.

As a consumer I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it and whichever screen is most convenient at the time.  All of which then raises a whole heap of other questions about how you create those "water cooler" discussion moments of shared experience driven by people you know watching the same thing at the same time.

So with that in mind, and remembering however digitally savvy we all are, we don't just live in cyberspace, I bring youYouTube's first venture into offline advertising:

YouTube modifies logo today...

to yell about getting 1 billion views per day (albeit last time I looked at some numbers it's actually greater than that most days). 

Apparently the average (US) consumer watches  9.7 hours of online video content a month, and the average video is 3.7 minutes long.  The last figures I saw earlier in the summer also quoted that there are 20 HOURS of content uploaded to YouTube per MINUTE! 

So twaddle to all those people that don't believe that users are participating or generating content.  How can your brand harness people's interest in getting involved?

For the second year running Doritos (in the US) are running a UGC themed competition  called "crash the superbowl" for the chance to win $5m and create the ad used for their prestigious and highly competitive SuperBowl spots.  Interesting because I saw a similar execution for Hula Hoops (owned by a different company) who are running a UGC video competition at the minute too.  Have a look - there's a lot of people genuinely prepared to put in some serious effort and creating good material.

YouTube: A platform to celebrate diversity

The nice thing about the web is that there's a place for everyone.

A quote I read ages ago and unfortunately can't remember the source of, said something along the lines of "YouTube is just like a TV station, there's a few gems in amongst a heap of rubbish".  True enough, most TV stations have their peaktime gems and an awful lot of filler / repeat content, and indeed the parallels work well for YouTube.

I've just found this film that has cut together some of the popular YouTube hits and set it against a music track.  How many do you recognise?  Can't say the track particularly worked for me, but fair play to the band who have leveraged the video cut as a promotional platform.

Making a song and a dance this week...

Hurrah! Apple approved the Spotify iPhone app. To be available soon (date tbc) for Spotify Premium users but you'll be able to cache music / playlists to listen to when you are not online/connected. Scratch the new iPod from the Amazon wish list then.

Spotify have also started to create a PAYG retail model for Spotify Premium in Sweden so it's bound to be in a newsagent near you before too long.

On the subject of PAYG, T-Mobile announced the launch of the 1st PAYG Android phone, (to be called the Pulse) with release date set for October. A princely £180 of the Queen's finest pounds to you. Dear Father Christmas.....

YouTube and the PRS kissed and made up (although there was purportedly a cash lump sum involved too) so all your favourite music videos will be back online again soon.

YouTube also LovesFilm (or thinks it might): YouTube are trialling a full length film rental subscription service amongst 10, 000 Google employees after securing deals with a number of major studios.

Whilst we're on the subject of movies, here's a nice film showing the evolution of visual effects in film over time. Once you've worked in animation you can't but help like these things!



Web based catch-up tv services will no longer be confined to viewing on your laptop after Sony announced that you'll be able to connect your Sony Bravia TV, Blu-ray player or Home Cinema to your broadband, and did a deal with Channel 5 for their Bravia Internet Video Service, so you won't have to ever miss Neighbours or have to watch it hunched over a laptop.

But conversely the need to be connected but not weighed down by a huge laptop has seen Netbooks take 22% of worldwide portable computer sales in Q2 this year.

And finally.... There are now 104 Twitter-ers who have more than a million followers. Amazon celebrated recruiting their millionth follower by giving away a free mp3. E-Crm - it's all about value exchange.

Interactive video fun

A while back YouTube started allowing you to tag videos with interactive links, and people have been playing with the many different ways you can link content together to create interesting multi-media web experiences. Kicking around for a while now has been the Boone Oakley agency "non-website" made entirely of connected videos hosted on YouTube, but I'm happy to plug them for pushing boundaries.

Remember those books you used to get as a kid where you could choose what happened next by deciding whether you wanted to jump to page 36 or page 64??

Well this morning I tripped over this YouTube interactive version and I'm sure it's the start of many more sophisticated stories told in the same way as people's preferences are increasingly for multi-media information consumption over text. Have a play..




Whilst I'm on the subject of YouTube, if you haven't already, check out YouTube XL - the rather AdobeAir inspired YouTube interface designed for those accessing YT on a big screen (e.g a TV) via a gaming platform or home media server or similar. I like it, it looks nice with it's dark surround, and the navigation is clear and simple.